Jesus wasn’t a politician. However, I recently watched both Democratic and Republican debates. I was hoping to watch a third-party debate, but that’s another article. Maybe 10 minutes of the more than four hours of presentations were spent on the need for free national healthcare. And in those 10 minutes, from all of the candidates, I think I understood about 5 seconds of their 26-letter, bureaucratic jargon—jargon that really means nothing. As the Native American elders would say, “They speak with forked tongue.”
In order to talk about “free” anything, you have to realize what the root of the problem is. And that is: plain greed. You see, doctors are supposed to be healers. They are supposed to go into the profession because of a calling from God, not for the desire to become rich or to have top status in a broken and materialistic society.
I’ve known of or met few true doctors in my life. Albert Schweitzer was a true doctor. Patch Adams is a true doctor. The several doctors who recently treated my son for a serious health situation are true doctors.
Many physicians get caught up in a system perpetuated by greed, due to: first, the schools they attend and the high cost of becoming a state-certified doctor, and then interning in hospitals that they then spend the rest of their lives associated with.
A large majority of the hospitals are privately owned and function under the capitalistic policy of profit. As a matter of fact, if you can’t pay, you just might die. You may ask yourself this question: “Why would a doctor or a healthcare facility do that?” I guess we can also ask: “Why would a person with a scientific mind work for a government or corporation making nuclear bombs and other weapons of chemical and biological warfare?” So, perhaps privatization and public health should not be mentioned in the same breath.
I think that in a government that is truly “for the people, by the people, and of the people,” in that kind of republic, democracy should take care of the health needs of its citizens. So what has happened?
As it is in the media and the entertainment business, so it is in health services—privatization and monopolization have become the rule. This happens over time because of the inequality of social status (which includes wages, education, and opportunity) as well as many other factors.
As I’ve said before, at the root of these evils are greed and the pursuit of power, which I would call dio power, as opposed to a good kind of power that I would call Deo power or God-given power to help others. In Western civilization, most schools perpetrate dio power from first grade to doctorate levels, and it manifests in every career because these institutions are so much a part of the larger society or system that is steeped in dio-power-oriented materialism.
Many altruistic students who graduate with a degree in social services and get a job in “the system” soon discover the inequality of the system. I know that I may be saying things that you’ve already heard and even experienced, but I’m trying to put it in relation to an answer to the problems.
You see, people have to change and have to stop supporting those in the system who perpetuate the lie. What really needs to change are the hearts of people.
The true “Great American Dream” had to do with freedom and concern for its citizenry, not for individual wealth at the expense of others. Somehow this dream got twisted to imply that individuals had the right to make as much money as they could (regardless of negative impacts on land and society), basically benefiting from slave labor. In this method, which is still dominant worldwide, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
We have to start thinking more on a planetary level. The “Great American Dream” needs to become the “Great Planetary Dream.” We need to start seeing all people of all nations as our brothers and sisters, as stated in this phrase I have coined:
We are all one planetary family.
I think the answer in all of Western civilization, and indeed the world, is pretty simple: we need more standardized and fair salaries, straight across the board.
Who’s more important: the architect or the carpenter? Without the carpenter’s hands-on labor, you wouldn’t have a house to live in. An idea is great, and putting it down on paper is a gift. But you also need the gifted carpenters to build it.
Who’s more important: the sports hero (who gets to play games all his life, like many of us did before we had to grow up) or the teacher (who intellectually nourishes and hopefully inspires your children)? Why should the sports hero make millions of dollars per year and the teacher receive a barely-survivable income?
Who’s more important: the owner of a supermarket chain or the farmer? Without the farmer, there would be no food in the supermarket.
Who’s more important: the car designer or the mechanic (who fixes it when it breaks down)?
Who’s more important: the rock star (who all too often becomes a star because of being willing to compromise his or her music and ideals and live a lifestyle of moral decadence) or the non-compromising musician (who is barely able to make a living because he or she won’t stoop to those levels of compromise and immorality, who just wants to create beautiful music)?
Who’s more important: the doctor of American-Medical-Association (A.M.A.) mentality (who supposedly diagnoses your illness and prescribes certain drugs to fix you—drugs you can’t afford in the first place) or the true healer (who tries to get to the root of the problem and prescribes proper thinking, herbs, diet, exercise, and a holistic health program, which includes preventative measures)?
How many doctors have told you that you’ve got to change your attitude in order to heal? That you have to be a nicer person, a more giving person, or whatever they intuit about your dio (erroneous and selfish) thinking and behavior? As Ralph Waldo Emerson stated:
What lies before us and what lies behind us is not so important as what lies within us.
In many states certain alternative healing practices are considered illegal, and authors who write books about alternative healing methods have to protect themselves with statements like the one below from the book, The Yeast Syndrome by John P. Trowbridge and Morton Walker.
Be aware that nutritional dosages for food supplements which exceed the recommended dietary allowances of the National Research Council of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences represent a therapeutic intervention and should be taken only under the direction of a properly trained and experienced holistic physician.
Accordingly, the coauthors and the publisher offer this disclaimer:
Information presented in this book is not to be construed as the practice of medicine or the giving of medical advice. We are not practicing nutritional therapy, which is illegal in certain states of the United States. . . .
If you watch the early evening news on any of the major networks, you are inundated with approximately 15 minutes worth of commercials in a half-hour program. In those 15 minutes you will see a “quick fix”—in pill form—advertised for every disease and discomfort known to modern man, and some that are made up. If there isn’t something wrong with you, after seeing all of those commercials, you can’t help but begin to think you need a pill.
One of my favorite made-up diseases is the “restless legs” syndrome. I’ve got a free answer to that one: instead of taking a pill full of synthetic materials that cause all kinds of side affects, simply get up and go for a walk! Get some exercise! Get that blood circulating! And you might want to look at your diet too!
The pharmaceutical companies, closely linked to the A.M.A., make billions of dollars trying to convince you you’re sick somewhere in your body. Their lobbyists and lawyers work very hard against any kind of alternative healthcare or common-sense, holistic healing.
Perhaps a way to help change the system is to find “true” doctors, “true” healers who aren’t trying to get rich on you and your loved ones, and go to them for help with your health problems. Give your support to those healing practitioners (which do include some physicians) who are trying to make a living in a moderate manner while helping others heal and develop health-promoting lifestyles and habits.
How can you find a decent way to make a living without being caught up in greed and desires for an unsustainable lifestyle that not only causes poor health for you but for many others too?
Capitalism in itself is not wrong, but it’s how it is used by those desiring too big of a piece of the world-resources pie. There’s nothing the matter with using capital as a means of exchange. It’s the value that some people put on their so-called talents that is way out of whack. How rich do you have to be? How about rich enough to support you and your family and live comfortably? The problem is what some people consider “comfortable”. I guess that’s going to have to be between you and God.
The problem is that there are many people who have no idea what God wants them to do or even care to know! You see, if you trust God and not mammon (material wealth), God will provide for you and your family. He will take care of all your needs, but not necessarily your wants. Now this doesn’t mean that you don’t have to do anything to support yourself and your family; it means that if your trust comes from Godly principles rather than principles based on greed and selfishness, you will find worthwhile work.
In the dio system, we are bombarded by corporate-controlled media to desire things we don’t really need—things made and sold by those who advertise with the media. This has everything to do with healthcare because healthcare is part of a whole system that needs to change. This all-encompassing system, of which medical concerns are a part, needs to become a system in concern for other people, not just for ourselves.
Basically the answer is living the first two commandments which are:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul.
And then your neighbor as yourself.
Wow! What an idea! If this could be followed by doctors, governmental leaders, politicians, corporate executives, educators, professionals of all careers, laborers, and religious leaders there would be free healthcare, free education, and a lot of other things free.
So, you’re thinking, “This will never happen.” But it can happen, beginning with you. Join those who have already applied this divine principle to their lives. There are people doing it. We need to find each other. We need to form communities outside of the system. We need to barter with each other. We need to be givers instead of takers.
And we need to also realize the simple truth that I coined for our religious community to follow:
Your child is my child, and my child is yours.
You can take this truth another step:
Your grandmother and grandfather are my grandmother and grandfather,
and your mother and father are my mother and father.
In this manner, we begin to care more for each other. Under this simple but profound thinking, we realize that “nationalism” breaks down to family, and we are all one planetary family under God. With that kind of thinking, worldwide cooperation, peace, and harmony will eventually evolve.
This is not an impossible dream; this is the future. This is the new millennium that is coming, which The URANTIA Book calls the first stage of light and life.
Evil will work itself out within people, because people will begin to see that it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work in their own lives, and it doesn’t work for the good of humanity. People will begin to make right and higher choices. It is happening now. And it is happening at an accelerated rate.
Maybe you’re one of those unhappy doctors or dentists who would rather be a coach or a cook or an athlete or an actor, or whatever, but you’re trapped with bills and kids to support. Or you want to be a doctor, but you can’t really heal anyone because you’re trapped in the system of formulas for prescribed medicines, many in which you really don’t believe can bring a cure or healing.
Here’s a phenomenal idea: QUIT! It’s better to have bad credit or no credit at all for a while than to develop a bad heart or the manifestation of another disease.
Trust your higher dreams. And most of all trust God, the Originator of idealistic dreams that, when realized, would contribute to your and others’ good health—physically, mentally, and spiritually. With faith and trust in God and in making choices that are for the good of others, God will help you fulfill those dreams of altruism and morality. But you must begin to take the first baby steps of faith, away from a system that doesn’t work—for you, your children, or humanity.